Amid post-pandemic exhaustion , The Dark Mode Shift articulated a cultural framework for understanding the transition from the “Light Mode” optimism culture of the 2010s to the unabashed mood of “mask of cynicism”  we now find ourselves within today. Conceived as both diagnosis and language for a generational mood, the essay traced how vice, fatigue, and disillusionment emerged as dominant forces in the wake of the broken promises of neoliberalism. It became a defining cultural reference point cited in The New Yorker, The Financial Times, and The Guardian to describe the emotional texture of the 2020s.

Nostalgia is one helluva drug. For Protein’s latest Dirty Words Report, ‘Nostalgia’, I was approached to use Protein’s research to develop a series of memes: ‘The Kidult’, ‘The Archivist’ and ‘The Artisan’, to illustrate the different archetypes of the nostalgia-prone. This was also paired with an interactive quiz allowing users to find out what type of nostalgic they were. 

I was engaged by an agency partner pitching Coach to conduct a two-day cultural and competitive audit mapping emerging Gen Z narratives in China and distilling insights into a report that identified whitespace opportunities in cultural positioning, tone, and collaboration strategy.

Cosmos is one of the leading inspiration platforms for professional creatives. I was approached by its founder, Andy McCune to develop a new newsletter format aimed at engaging a broader, more casual audience. Co-authored with Dena Yago, the result was Sequence, a bi-weekly newsletter detailing recent aesthetic developments, cultural news, and spotlighting members of the Cosmos community.